Loralei knew she was going to have a bad day. She knew it from the moment she woke up in her Dormitory that morning. What she didn't know though, was that it would happen in the middle of Potion's class.

"I need James and Loralei Potter, and Sirius Black." A Prefect announced.

Loralei's blood went cold, and she automatically knew what was next. The hospital.

They walked hand-in-hand to the Headmaster's office. Loralei in the middle of the two boys.

"We can't cry, at least not too much." Loralei told them. "We say what we can, that we love her, and we will miss her."

"I think I can agree to that." Sirius said, his face pale.

"Yeah, me too." James said, his eyes looking too big for his face. "I don't know if I can do this."

"We have to, it's her last wish." Loralei told him.

"I don't know if I can either." Sirius told her quietly, his voice barely reaching a whisper.

"All you guys have to do is sit there, I'll hold her hand." Loralei told them. Trying not to break down in tears just yet, she looked up and blinked the tears away.

For being the least messed with people in the school, they looked pretty scared, and pretty young right now. None of them were ready for losing their mother, or the closest thing they had to one. No one ever is.

When they saw Cordelia Potter, she looked frail, her cheeks were sunken in, and she looked like it was getting harder to breathe. One hand of her's was in Charles' and the other was lying on the bed beside her. Loralei nodded to her father in greeting, and he nodded back.

Loralei released the boys' hands, and went to her mother, and taking her mother's weak hand in her strong one, and squeezing gently. "Hey Mum." She sat on the bed beside her.

Her mother looked up. "James," she said as she saw him. Loralei didn't like what she heard, Cordelia's voice was soft, raspy and fragile.. "Sirius." Her line of sight fell on him. "Loralei," she finally said as she set eyes on her daughter. Loralei noticed her mother's eyes were filled with tears, it seems she wasn't as ready as she liked.

"Do you want anything?" Loralei asked.

"I want you all to know that I love you." Cordelia told them all, looking around the room.

"I love you too." They all echoed in unison, making her smile sadly, before turning to her daughter. "Can you sing for me?"

Loralei smiled sadly. "You know I can't sing."

"You don't think you can." She corrected quietly. "Now, indulge a dying woman."

Loralei nodded, and licked her lips. "I can't think of any lyrics."

"I'll give you a moment." Cordelia whispered.

Loralei picked up her mother's hand and pressed it to her lips, before she pulled away and sighed before starting to sing.

"Beth I hear you calling, but I can't come home right now." Her voice was soft and sweet, ringing loudly in the once-quiet room. "Me and the boys are playing, and we just can't find the sound." She drew out the word, holding the note before going up one, and back down to the original one she started on.

"Just a few more hours, and I'll be right home to you." She whispered the last word, as her mother's heartbeat began to get weaker, she heard it in the beeping from her heart monitor. Loralei's stomach began to hurt, and she felt sick, but she didn't show any signs. "I think I hear them calling. Oh, Beth what can I do? Beth what can I do?"

Loralei drew in a breath. "You say you feel so empty, that our house just ain't our home. I'm always somewhere else, and you're always here alone." Loralei's voice became louder, like she was scared her mother couldn't hear her. "Just a few more hours, and I'll be right home to you. I think I hear them calling. Oh Beth what can I do? Beth what can I do?"

Her mother's grip on her hand was weaker than ever, and Loralei only gripped harder, with so much force she probably was breaking her mother's hand. "Beth I know you're lonely, and I hope you'll be all right, 'cause me and the boys will be playing all night." The last line was more a sob than a verse in a song.

"Mum?" Loralei shook her mother's arm.

No answer. Loralei knew she was gone, but it hadn't sunk in yet.

"Mum, wake up." She began to shake Cordelia's shoulders. "Please wake up." Her voice was showing how she truly felt; broken, alone, and miserable.

Loralei got on her knees on the bed, sinking into the mattress. "Wake up, Mum." She begged, while the men around her just watched, until her father spoke.

"She's gone, Loralei." He said quietly. "She's...gone."

Loralei couldn't accept that yet. She couldn't.

"Mum." Loralei cried, before putting her hands on her mother's cheeks and stroking them. "Wake up, please."

No reply.

Tears streaked down Loralei's cheeks, and Loralei closed her eyes. "I love you." Loralei's kissed her mother's forehead.

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder and looked to see her father, they looked at each other a moment before leaning over the body between them, and embraced.

After all that's all that was between them.

An empty shell. An empty body.

"She planned her funeral." Loralei told Peter, Remus and Lily, who were both in her bedroom, along with James and Sirius, but they had already known. They sat around her room, Lily was laying next to Loralei, her arm around Loralei's back, holding her.

Loralei hadn't felt like she could breathe since she sang to her mother as she died a little over one day ago. Because of the funeral the next day, Remus, Peter, and Lily all got Friday off to be there for their friends. Loralei was happy that she at least had them to keep her from going insane.

Everything was solemn in the room, no one spoke over a whisper, and no one knew what to say. Their father had locked himself in his room, as far as they knew he didn't eat, he was just mourning his wife as his introverted personality allowed him to; alone.

"She didn't want anyone else to be stressed planning it." James added, staring blankly from his spot, sitting against the wall, hugging a pillow to his chest.

"She even wrote us all letters." Loralei told them, as James pulled his out of his pocket, crumbled and unopened.

"Have you read it?" Lily asked carefully, looking from James to Loralei.

"No," Sirius answered, quietly. "I got one too."

"We were going to open them together." James said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"But we were too tired." Loralei added.

"And it wasn't time yet." Sirius told them.

"She told us to wait until we were happy." James told them.

"I think I'm going to open it at coping." Loralei muttered.

The three nodded, as the others stayed quiet, not knowing what to say. The other three didn't know what to say either, so they fell into silence.

Loralei walked slowly though the house, only in her T-shirt that she slept in. When she made it to the place she was looking for, she was surprised to see the light coming out from under the door.

She knocked on her brother's door, and opened it herself, to see two boys sitting there with a half empty bottle of Firewhiskey.

"Where are the other's?" Loralei asked, leaning against the doorway.

"They're asleep downstairs, what about Lily?" James replied.

"Been passed out for a half hour." Loralei told them, closing the door before going towards her brother's bed, and sitting down before holding her hand out for Sirius to give her the bottle. "Mind sharing?"

Sirius shrugged, giving her the bottle of amber liquid.

Loralei took a deep breath, before holding the opening of the bottle to her lips, and turning it upside down, and chugging until she gagged, releasing the bottle to her brother.

"Pace yourself." James told her.

"I just want to feel numb, James." She told him, her voice desperate.

He passed her the bottle. "Drink up then."

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